A great fish-out-of-water coming of age memoir: the tale of a 24-year-old Jewish kid from Chicago who enlists in the Israeli Army and finds himself in a tank unit in Lebanon fighting a war where most of his "senior" officers are 20-year-olds who don't want to be in the Army. Laugh-out-loud funny at times, but actually a good perspective on what happens when a nation enforces universal military service. Chasnoff also finds himself confronting some hard questions about his Jewish identity -- something he has taken for granted growing up as a minority in the United States. So all that rah-rah from your day school and you dream of enlisting in the IDF to support Israel. Can't you just send a check like everyone else?? At times a very funny and poignant memoir of a "typical" young college graduate belonging to a conscientious observant jewish family. Makes me shake my head as I'm puzzled over Chasnoff's resolve to make it through the year! Anything more, and I'll spoil the fun!!
OK, not as funny as I hoped, but the ending was a bit more moving than I thought it would be
—Ashy
Very useful for my novel. I'll just steal huge parts of it, I think.
—dianagean
Funny, profane, & deadly serious.
—simo534
